Nuts dance with heart-healthy value

Disco music and nuts have a lot in common. Both were popular decades ago. Both are fun but a little oily. And both have been staging a comeback.

In the 1960s and ‘70, nuts received praise for their nutritional virtues. In the ‘80s they landed on the taboo list as a primary suspect in weight gain, due to their high calorie counts. And now, wouldn’t you know it, nuts are back in the food rotation with high marks for their potential heart-healthy benefits.

I never had a problem with disco and, for that matter, I never held a grudge against nuts. Unfortunately, the bad rap nuts acquired in the 1980s lingers. I’m a dietitian, and when I mention nuts to clients, they often look at me quizzically and say, “Are you crazy? Nuts are so high in fat.”

It is true that nuts contain a lot of calories and fat, but did you ever stop to think about just how many nuts you are eating? Has anyone looked at the food label that is conveniently printed on the back of the nut jar to check how many nuts are in a serving portion?

Most likely, if you stay within the recommended portion, your waistline won’t expand. As with many foods in the modern diet, the problem is not the food itself, but the amount we eat that gives food — in this case nuts — a bad rep.

When you look at the situation more closely, it turns out that the fat in nuts may not even be that bad for you. Let me clarify a few points that I know are keeping you awake at night.

• Yes, nuts are highly caloric. Depending on the nut, one serving can have anywhere from 17 to 22 grams of fat. Sorry folks, there’s no getting around it.

• Although they have a lot of fat, most of it takes the form of mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, both so-called good fats because they may have the positive effect of lowering bad LDL cholesterol.

• Nuts are low in saturated fat, the bad fat that tends to increase LDL cholesterol that eventually congregates on the walls of your arteries and leads to atherosclerosis.

• Nuts contain no cholesterol. A quick reminder: Cholesterol only comes from animal products or animal byproducts. So nuts are in the clear.

As science evolves, we are discovering that there is more to nutrition than the familiar macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fats. Equally important are the phytonutrients — compounds that act as antioxidants and help fight maladies such as heart disease and diabetes. (Don’t let the scientific name scare you. The word phytonutrients comes from the Greek, and it simply means nutrients from plants.)

Nuts are loaded with phytonutrients, as well as protein, fats (the good ones), vitamins and minerals. This lands them in the camp of foods we dietitians call nutrient dense.

So are nuts automatically good for you and, if so, how much should you eat? Here are the Cliffs Notes for some of the more common varieties.

• Walnuts are the flagship of the nut fleet, thanks to an abundance of omega 3 fatty acids. Yes, those are the same omega 3 fatty acids found in fatty fish such as salmon and the newly fashionable flax seed oil. This miraculous stuff has been shown to have a positive effect on decreasing bad cholesterol (LDL), as well as decreasing C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammation marker that is strongly associated with heart disease.

That’s not all. At 185 calories per ounce/serving (14 halves) and 17 grams fat, walnuts are also high in fiber, protein and magnesium and show the highest rating for nuts in antioxidants. No wonder they’re so popular in the cuisines of Europe, the Middle East, Near East, and even China.

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